Saturday, March 18, 2006

A Post-November 5th World

Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of LondonI'll show you something to make you change your mind - Ralph McTell

It's only a movie. Well no, thank God: V for Vendetta is also a graphic novel with a reach that will always exceed Joel Silver's grasp. Still, I won't be one of those people who can't see the screen for his upturned nose at the faithlessness of an adaptation. (Foolish me, I actually expected the destruction of the Houses of Parliament in the opening act, just like on page six.) Because there is a plot point added that means everything to V's story, and ours, post 9/11.

The first chapters of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta were published in 1982. Today, Moore's introduction from the series' first DC Comics run invites thoughts of you think you've got it bad:

It's 1988 now. Margaret Thatcher is entering her third term of office and talking confidently of an unbroken Conservative leadership well into the next century. My youngest daughter is seven and the tabloid press are circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS. The new riot police wear black visors, as do their horses, and their vans have rotating video cameras on top.

But Moore knew his dystopic vision had already undershot reality: "Naivete can also be detected in my supposition that it would take something as melodramatic as a near-miss nuclear conflict to nudge England towards fascism." And here's where the post-9/11 adaptation honours Moore's work by departing from it: the backstory of medical experimentation to which V had been subject is extended to a black ops bio-weapons attack on schools and public transit, leading to the deaths of 100,000 people. Foreign patsies are framed and executed, and the government rewarded with limitless authority in exchange for the promise of security.

Natalie Portman's character Evey tells V her father used to say that "artists use lies to tell the truth, and politicians lie to hide it." I think the film becomes genuinely important here, by artfully telling why a government might want to kill its own people. The lies of art serve a hard truth well. The political lies are well told, too, and comically familiar. The laughter they provoke is bittersweet.

Now, with a spoiler advisory, here's where I think the film falters as dangerous art. (At least as good dangerous art.)

The climax sees thousands of Londoners converge on Parliament at V's appointed hour. Fine. But they all look like V, shod in identical mask, cap and cape. It's reminiscent of the black hoodies of Eminem's Mosh. I know it's easier to depict visually, but for the love of all that's anti-fascist, unity doesn't mean uniformity. Hell, abhorrance of diversity is one of fascism's most noxious and prominent traits. So the spectacle of an identically-costumed silent crowd marching with seeming mind-controlled precision doesn't exactly make my heart shout "Freedom forever!"

But even an antifascist of Woody Guthrie's pedigree found himself similarly wrongfooted on occasion. In "She Came Along to Me," first recorded for Billy Bragg and Wilco's Mermaid Avenue, Guthrie wrote

And all creeds and kinds and colorsOf us are blendingTill I suppose ten million years from nowWe'll all be just alike

Same color, same size, working togetherAnd maybe we'll have all of the fascistsOut of the way by thenMaybe so

Or maybe not, if it takes us all being the same size, kind, color and creed.

The world needs fewer uniforms, even on our side. We ought to be the irregulars.

62 Comments:

My old creative partner Tom Simmons first introduced me to "V For Vendetta" when we were in college, I had, up to that time, only read X-MEN, Batman etx. comics, full of puerile preadolescent power fantasies. "V" was the first comic I read that seemed to transcend the medium. I never would have guessed I'd be living in that world 15 years later. I'm not sure how to feel about that. I do think you're right, Jeff, that we can't trade one uniform for another, in the end, uniforms are what bring us right back to fascism, in the end. Even suits and ties. ;) - mh

I didn't like the costumes and masks at the end of "V for Vendetta" too. But the movie raises awareness for the possibility that we already live inside a carefully constructed lie right now. And any film who encourages the general public to look twice and to think for themselves deserves it to be seen by a large audience.

Well, yes, they do all dress up like V, but as a symbol of enduring human rebellion in them all and us. They take of their masks, which was hugely symbolic. They were all unique human beings underneath, with a common goal.

Dissention is a uniform cause and strikes back with a vendetta.

And as pointed out, the underlying messages in that film were astounding. I recognized many elements that directly related to what is happening now in the present.

Unfortunately many of my friends that saw it fail to realize them. It's all just fictious entertainment, until I tell them otherwise.

*SPOILER*

In the film, the United States is briefly mentioned as being mired in perpetual civil war and a crumbling economy. This is described as happening after invading Iraq, and a list of every middle eastern country after.

Let's see... We have had George Orwell (1984, Animal Farm), Aldous Huxley (Brave New World), Alan Moore (V for Vendetta), and I suppose many others (feel free to add to this short list).

We even had James Bamford, a courageous reporter if I ever saw one, who detailed in "Body of Secrets" CIA/NSA joint plans, drawn in the 1960s, for starting a war with Cuba using... terrorist attacks on American cities. Does that remind you of something, by any chance?

And despite all these warnings, it seems we are still lurching toward Armaggedon and/or fascism, the utter annihilation of every human rights and freedom thousands of people died to protect. All of this while being led by men that are, at best, bumbling incompetent idiots or, at worst, (if there is truly a link between all the stories on rigorous intuition) child rapists and drug fiends, devil worshippers and fascist elitists that are trying to create a world where all are slaves, except themselves.

It reminds me of the Oracle of Delphi, whose predictions were never trusted, or understood, until it was too late. Sometimes, I really think it's too late. We will be enslaved, and we will learn to love Big Brother and praise his name with grateful tears in our eyes.

Of course, in this near future, dangerous books will be quietly burned, like Bradbury detailed in Fahrenheit 451. Blogs will disappear, the past will be erased, the Internet will be controlled and patrolled and the slaves will adjust to their new lives quietly.

"They" may even leave us a minimum of free speech... after all, who cares who the slaves mock, or talk about, just as long as they obey, consume, and buy the shit they are told to buy? Sure, let them have their fun. It even takes their minds away from the awful truth: that they are slaves, that their children will be slaves and that there is no way around it. Arbeit macht frei, only with better creature's comforts and cable TV.

I didn't like the end of Rocky Horror Picture Show for the same reason -- "liberation" seemed to mean turning everybody into a Tim Curry clone.

But that seems to be a common human failing. Most are content to stay in the herd forever. Some -- say 20%, at a guess -- are daring enough to follow the first one to break loose and follow a different path. But only a vanishingly tiny number are willing to be that first one themselves.

Among other things, this means the real innovators are commonly beset by people who want to camp on their front lawn and wear their castoff clothing.

It also means the breakaways are preprogrammed to become tomorrow's herd, once that first exhilerating moment of freedom has worn off.

Our culture carries within it the implied assumption that the World will be 'saved' when the other misguided people can be won over to your position, -or destroyed. Both religious and secular types do this, and it is absurd on its face. Without variation experience would surely become quite thin. Variation therefore is both necessary and good.

When our structures for understanding provide a better map for discernment, incorrect imperatives will no longer swamp out rationality with their emotional appeal. Artificial tension between order and liberty disrupts natural expressions, forcing them to be clothed in poisonous ideological pretences. The deception centers on a confusion of categories. Rather than conservative good, liberals bad- or vise versa, we will come to consider that divisiveness is 'evil' and relationships are good. We will then find positive expressions of order and liberty that provide balance and proper means to manifest a sustainable existence for more people.

Confusion between the nation and the state is also taken good advantage of by the PTB. Peoples of many nations are rich in variations of character, yet the state apparatus are depressingly similar in their corruptions.

I have been in a million man/woman march and it was ignored. I never seen the "coverage" but there wasn't even an historical note on it. The disinformation that followed was no information. What a pointless way to express yourself..

The Baker Street Irregulars are several different groups, all named after the original, from various Sherlock Holmes stories.Contents

* 1 The original * 2 Special Operations Executive * 3 The modern organization * 4 Influence on other popular culture * 5 See also * 6 External links

The original

The original Irregulars are a group of fictional characters featured in the Sherlock Holmes stories. They were a group of street urchins who helped Holmes out from time to time. The head of the group was called Wiggins. Holmes paid them a shilling a day (plus expenses), with a guinea prize (worth one pound and one shilling) for a vital clue.

Special Operations Executive

The Special Operations Executive (SOE), tasked by Winston Churchill to "set Europe ablaze" during World War II, had their headquarters at 64 Baker Street and were often called "the Baker Street Irregulars" after Sherlock Holmes's fictional group of spies.

The modern organization

The Baker Street Irregulars are also an organization of Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts founded in 1934 by Christopher Morley. Members have included Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Rex Stout and Isaac Asimov. They continue to convene every January in New York City for an annual dinner, which forms part of a weekend of celebration and study involving other Sherlockian groups and individuals as well. The present leader of is Michael Whelan of Indianapolis, Indiana.

The BSI, as it calls itself, is considered the preeminent Sherlockian group in the United States. There are also "scion societies" approved by the BSI in dozens of local communities. Most scion societies welcome new members, but the BSI does not accept applications for membership -- instead, membership and the awarding of an "Irregular Shilling" comes as an honor to those who have made a name for themselves in local groups or in Sherlockian publications. The BSI has published The Baker Street Journal, an "irregular quarterly of Sherlockiana" since 1946.

Influence on other popular culture

Robert A. Heinlein picked up the idea in his novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. Those Irregulars carried out similar surveillance in the run-up to a revolution, working for a computer named Mycroft, named after Sherlock Holmes' older smarter brother.

The Irregulars also appear in the animated series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, though these are teenagers, and presumably older than the ones of the Doyle canon. Like in the stories, the unofficial leader is named Wiggins, an aspiring pugilist and soccer player. Holmes practically deduces his entire life story simply by noting his walk and the stains on his clothes during their first meeting. A self-styled cockney girl and a computer nerd paraplegic form the other members of the group.

The Baker Street Irregulars is also the name of an English band from Preston who take their name from Holmes' street urchins.

Here's a letter I wrote to John Kaminsky this morning that I thought you might want to post: Dear John,

I read your article titled 'Who Made This Plan?' and I totally agree with every word you wrote, and then I read a few other articles posted on Rense.com and Prison Planet, and after awhile I got to thinking about the common thread running through most such articles, or rather the missing common thread, and that is that everybody is hammering the Zionist conspiracy and it's myriad of symptoms, but nobody is saying much of anything about the root cause which is the public's addiction to the very mechanism that is being used by the Illuminati as the tool of public enslavement, which is TV. Not just TV but also movies in that the propaganda and subliminal psychological messaging included in them is just as bad as it is in the standard TV programming everyone watches, or possibly even worse.

I saved this quote by Peter Kenton:

"If your core values and beliefs and positions, no matter how reasonable, how mainstream, how correct, how ethical, are filtered to the public through the lens of a media that has inoculated the public against your message, and if the media is the public’s primary source of information, then NOTHING you say is going to break through and change that dynamic."Peter Daou (real name Peter Kenton) American journalist and political watchdog, editor of The Daou Report

My thinking is that unless we strike at the root, which is the Illuminati's primary machinery of control, namely TV and movies, by telling people what's happening to them through that machinery, that NOTHING we say is going to break through and change anything. But you and I know that most of the people love their chains and will therefore seek any solution other than doing what it would really take to cure the disease that Western Culture is being infected with, which is to break the vicious cycle of watching TV and movies. Unless we start addressing the issue, breaking that cycle simply isn't going to happen, and as long as the public continues watching TV and movies things are only going to get worse, and there will be nothing we can do about it.

Screaming about the symptoms of the Illumniati system and its effects pretty much amounts to being an exercise in futility when you consider that by doing the screaming you might succeed in momentarily alerting lots of people to the fact that something really bad is going on, only to have your message mentally blocked out by their next dose of government news or by whatever subliminal messaging they're exposed to via the next movie they watch. And don't forget that it's the Illuminati and their mandarins who own and operate all the major movie studios and TV networks.

I think that we should be addressing the media mind control issue as part and parcel of every exposure of the Illuminati system that we make, otherwise all our efforts will be like a doctor who correctly diagnoses a person's illness and then neglects to prescribe a cure.

I couldn't suspend my disbelief when V emerged from the flames naked (with the letter from the lesbian prisonmate up his ass?), became a millionaire (with a cell neatly constructed in his mansion), commandeered a subway-car (in times of high security), ordered and delivered a few 100,000 Guy Fawkes masks/capes? (in times of high security)... I realize "behind the mask lies an idea", but at least Bruce Wayne amassed his fortune beforehand. Having not read the comic, and in spite of this, I still thought the movie was pretty easy to enjoy.

Haven't seen the movie.Don't care to.Oh I'll probably rent the DVD but the subtlety of Moore's words are what make V, and Hollywood tends to stomp on subtleties.

Thanks for the spoiler though.

An army of V's marching on Parliament?

Sheesh!

Now to vear of topic:

The 4th Amendment to the Constitution:The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

This from last nights Countdown:Olbermann: (reading from a U.S. News & World Report press release) "Soon after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, lawyers in the White House and the Justice Department argued that the same legal authority that the same legal authority that allowed warrentless electronic surveillance inside the US, could also be used to justify physical searches of terror suspects homes & businesses without court approval."

Olbermann: Doesn't that send chills down your spine?

Turley: Well it does. It's horrific, because what that would constitute is to effectively remove the 4th Amendment from the U.S. Constitution and the fact that it was so quick as a suggestion shows the inclinations, unfortunately, of this administration. It treats the Constitution as some legal technicality instead of the thing were trying to fight to protect. Notably, the U.S. News & World Report story says the FBI officals, or some of them apparently, objected... [W]e're seeing a lot of people in the administration with the courage to say "Hold it, this is not what we're supposed to be about. If we're fighting a war, it's a war of self definition and if we start to take whole amendments out of the Constitution in the name of the war on terror-we have to wonder what's left at the end, except victory."

Olbermann: (reading from the press release) "According to 2 two current and former government officals . . . the Bush administration lawyers presented the arguments to senior FBI officals who expressed strong reservations about their proposal. . . . It could not be determined whether any warrentless physical searches had been carried out under the legal authority cited by the administration, but at least one defense attorney representing a terrorism suspect has alleged that his law office and home may have been searched without a court warrant."

Olbermann: The attorneys office and home not the suspect's office and home. Is there away to overstate this? When you start to talk about the 4th amendment and protections of constitution verses the needs to try to track down terrorist, you can move very quickly into tin-foil hat zone. When you sound totally Paranoid-like they're spying on us through our walls, but is this...is this not the first thing you would see if you did some sort of... prequel to the book 1984, wouldn't this be somewhere in the 1st chapter?

Turley: I'm afraid it would. This is something to be very concerned about. These are not trival matters. We've seen a sort of broad-based assault on basic Constitutional rights in our country since 9/11. We have a President who ordered electronic surveillance by the NSA without warrants in something that constitutes a federal crime. Congress isn't even holding serious hearings on that. So we have a system that has checks & balances but none of them seem to

This from Gonzales' testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

SCHUMER: ... We talked before about the legal theory that you have, under AUMF [authority to use military force]. And I had asked you that under your legal theory, can the government, without ever going to a judge or getting a warrant, search an American's home or office. ...

GONZALES: I'm not suggesting that it is different, quite frankly. I would like the opportunity, simply, to think...

SCHUMER: I'm sorry. If you could pull the mike up. Sorry.

GONZALES: I'm sorry. I'm not saying that it would be different. I would simply like the opportunity to contemplate over it and give you an answer.[...]

Now, here's the next question I have: Has the government done this? Has the government searched someone's home, an American citizen, or office, without a warrant since 9/11, let's say?

GONZALES: To my knowledge, that has not happened under the terrorist surveillance program, and I'm not going to go beyond that.

SCHUMER: I don't know what that -- what does that mean, under the terrorist surveillance program? The terrorist surveillance program is about wiretaps. This is about searching someone's home. It's different.

So it wouldn't be done under the surveillance program. I'm asking you if it has been done, period.

GONZALES: But now you're asking me questions about operations or possible operations, and I'm not going to get into that, Senator.

From this RI discussion board thread-http://p216.ezboard.com/frigorousintuitionfrm10.showMessageRange?topicID=3427.topic&start=61&stop=65>>>>

This movie illustrates exactly how media has become a form of military mind virus called 'psychological warfare' over the last sixty years.

[b]In 'Vendetta' the anti-war movement is Orwellified into the very problem it is trying to prevent, intentionally created violence as a tool of governance called 'Rule Through Tension.'[/b]

'Vendetta' is thus a tool for continuing permanent war called by neocon-artists the Clash of Civilizations, a militarist campaign previously known as The Crusades. [b]Stoking culture war divisions within the US enables the same war in more oil-rich regions of the planet.[/b]

An relevent aside on the makers of 'Vendetta'-Interesting that 'Vendetta' was made by the makers of 'Matrix.'

'The Matrix' was pre-emptive fictionalization of a reality now beginning to dawn in the minds of many Americans: we have a massive state-controlled media steering our national psyche to control us using total war doctrines mandating psychological manipulation for 'national security interests' which were institutionalized after WWII starting with the 1951 Psychological Strategy Board.

Early internet spam had text with this military history information embedded in it to begin to innoculate spam filters against the spread of this very information on the internet, a tactic I've dubbed 'spamjacketing' after the FBI's counterintelligence campaigns to 'badjacket' effective social justive movement organizers with accusations that they were 'spies working for The Man.'

So 'The Matrix' was [b]a way to head off the internet truth movement's discovery of state-controlled media[/b] by spinning a [b]pre-emptive fictionalization [/b]of post-WWII reality in America, full immersion in a fabricated web of social-engineering mind viruses spun by CIA and PR media-spiders pushing Council on Foreign Relations and National inSecurity State policies. Some message managers are motivated by money and some by social control, the ultimate result of having money in an oligarchy.

'Vendetta,' on the other hand, is class warfare agit-prop to further the tactic of creating a Brown Shirt movement against anti-war Americans exemplified by David Horowitz' book 'The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics' meant to chill college campuses with a new McCarthyism lest the middle-class anti-war movement grow into a mass movement of visible resistance amongst the recruitable youth siphoned off to occupy the American Empire by the economic draft. Crucifying a Ward Churchill or Jay Bennish in the media reinforces the intended chilling message to critics of the government.

Only the latte-drinking and cheese-eating are missing from this scorned elitist stereotype weilded against 'hate-America-first-ers.'

The goal of perpetuating endless war using religion for fuel is given away in the anti-hero's self-description-[b]“A vendetta held as a votive, not in vain”[/b]

Votive candles are used in religious ceremonies.Vendettas are endless cycles of violence."So they won't have died in vain" is a justification for more dying regularly trotted out when the futility of slaughter is finally noticed again as it has been regularly since WWI, the 'War to End All Wars.'

This misleading name was actually a propaganda marketing name developed by Edward Bernays who become known as the 'father of propaganda.' Bernays was the nephew of Sigmund Freud and wrote 'Propaganda' in 1928 to summarize what he had been developing for the government and commerce elite, [b]a methodical way of steering the masses into desired behaviors[/b] 'for the good of the country.'http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Propaganda/Propaganda_Bernays.html

Bernays was horrified when his book was embraced by the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels to do exactly that and 'Vendetta' is just one more link in the long chain of media events designed to divide-and-conquer populations to perpetuate violence.

This review by Jeff Giles highlights these agit-prop tone-http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11769182/site/newsweek[quote]...the movie plays like [b]a clumsy assault on post-9/11 paranoia.[/b] ....The film may spark interesting debates—about the nature of terrorism and governments, about the inalienable right of artists to shock and provoke—but what we're dealing with is [b]a lackluster comic-book movie that thinks terrorist is a synonym for revolutionary.[/b]....the loquacious masked man who calls himself V (Hugo Weaving) dwells in an underground lair [b]filled with art[/b] he's stolen back from government censors.....[b]Buildings are symbols[/b], V tells a haunted young woman named Evey (Natalie Portman), after saving her from some vile, rampaging cops: [b]"Blowing up a building can change the world."[/b][/quote]

The New Yorker's David Enby gives more adamant warning about the poisonous nature of this film, possibly due to recognizing the culture war tactic of demonizing the educated and cultural creatives-http://www.newyorker.com/critics/cinema/[quote]“V for Vendetta,” a dunderheaded pop fantasia that celebrates terrorism and destruction, is perhaps the ultimate example of how a project with modest origins becomes a media monster.....(V, the main character) keeps everyone at bay with [b]a teasing verbal dexterity[/b] that hovers between the awesome and the tedious. When he saves a young woman in the street, Evey (Natalie Portman), from being assaulted by government thugs, he treats her to a rapid [b]alliterative patter (“A vendetta held as a votive, not in vain”)[/b], and Portman does a disbelieving double-take—the movie’s only funny moment. [b]V is into Shakespeare, too, and, like a windy ham actor in his dotage, quotes “Macbeth” at every chance.[/b]....Yet even if one enjoys the craft of “Vendetta,” and, viewing it as an extravagant pop myth, cuts it as much slack as possible, there’s no getting around the fact that [b]this allegedly antifascist work lusts after fire and death.[/b][/quote]

James Wolcott notices how 'Vendetta' seems meant to alienate and antagonize both sides of the culture war and the War on Terra-http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2006/02/the_red_and_the.php[quote]V for Vendetta may be--why hedge? is--[b]the most subversive cinematic deed of the Bush-Blair era, a dagger poised in midair.[/b] Unlike the other movies dubbed “controversial” (Fahrenheit 9-11, The Passion, Munich, Syriana), [b]it doesn’t play to a particular constituency or polarized culture bloc[/b], it’s working on a deeper, Edger Allen Poe-ish witch’s brew substrata of pop myth. [b]Cultural conservatives will loathe it without seeing it (they love not having to leave their houses to lament the latest installment of civilization’s decline and fall) once they hear of and read about the movie’s disturbing political parallels [/b](a fascistic TV host with a witty resemblance to Berlusconi, fertilizer explosives a la Timothy McVeigh; torture, renditions, and subway bombings; black hoods that will be forever associated with Abu Ghraib). [b]Yet lots of cultural liberals with educated tastes will find it anxiety-producing and irresponsible too,[/b] not only because they’re more comfortable with humanistic stories and documentary techniques than with pop spectacle (as Kael discovered whenever she praised upstart movies like DePalma’s Carrie or The Warriors and received letters from profs and Ph.D couples complaining about her soiling the New Yorker’s space on trash), but [b]because V for Vendetta doesn’t just depict a 1984’s dystopia--it advocates radical remedy, and illustrates what it advocates with rhapsodic, operatic, orgasmic flourish.[/b]....[b]V for Vendetta instills force into the very essence of four-letter words like hate, love, and (especially) fear, and releases that force like a fist.[/b][/quote]

This is an American class warfare tradition going back to the fear-mongering over anarchists and socialists in the early 20th century that resulted in the precursor to the Patriot Act known as the Palmer Raids run by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI which arbitrarily swept up hundreds of immigrants for abuse and deportation.http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/understanding_fascism.htm(Fascism Part I: Understanding Fascism and Anti-Semitismby Geoff Price)

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm(Fascism Part II: The Rise of American Fascismby Geoff Price)

All in the interest of further dividing the American public over the permanent War on Terra while maintaining the cover of 'plausible deniability' that characterizes propaganda, psy-ops, and strategic influence.

This is divide-and-conquer tactic is also behind the intentional stoking of culture war wedge issues like the Civil War, Confederate flags, and the ubiquitous Lynyrd Skynyrd song 'Sweet Home Alabama' with its celebration of iconic segregationist Governor George Wallace.

Because the American south is a prime military recruiting source and hostility to 'liberal elite yankees like the Kennedys' is transformed into a corporate security gang run by the Pentagon which, by the way, killed the Kennedys.

the wachowski's have their hands tied behind their back. the matrix sequels are evidence of this. they don't get everything they want. and so who knows. maybe that final scene was on the bargaining table. this film has much to say. this is the first film in a loong time that's really excited me. it's because its about what truelly matters. the indominablee will to fight and not submit.ever.

I think the movie just asks a simple question: "What would you do if you find out that the biggest terrorist in the world is the head of the country you live in?"

It's a valid question. If, like in the movie, the political process doesn't work anymore - what's left that you can do? Is it morally superior to endlessly debate about a strategy how to get rid of a fascist government, or - speaking in terms of the movie - doesn't it make more sense to just... flip the switch?

Starting a discussion about this issue is probably the whole point the movie is trying to make.

Still, I won't be one of those people who can't see the screen for his upturned nose at the faithlessness of an adaptation. (Foolish me, I actually expected the destruction of the Houses of Parliament in the opening act, just like on page six.)

I think you are missing the point here. It's not a matter of not being able to "...see the screen for his upturned nose at the faithlessness of an adaptation." Alan Moore was wronged by the producers, screen writers, director, DC comics, Warner Brothers and the parent company Time Warner. They all lied, swindled, cheated and humiliated him. Alan Moore has given all of the money he has made from his movies (except maybe From Hell, not sure - certainly all of the new films from League onwards) to the artists. What have Joel Silver or the Wachowski Brothers (if you want the real Matrix, read William Gibson's Neuromancer) done, except pilfer ideas from talented artists and writers ? At the end of the day, a true brother and exceptionally gifted human being has been unjustly wronged. If you want to contribute to the foul deeds of sleaze merchants by supporting this film, then that's your business.

Some excerpts from a Alan Moore interview published by Salon in 2004:

My general thought is that yes, it's depressing, but not unexpected, when this stuff happens. And I do tend to think that, given the upsurge of the religious right over the last couple of decades, these are the last spasms of those dinosaur organisms.

Why do you think that?

Because they are standing in the way of history, trying to turn everything, politically and spiritually, back to a medieval vision of the world. Whereas they're perfectly entitled to have whatever worldview they like, I would suggest that humanity is moving in a forward direction. And that any attempt to turn the clock back to a mythical, simpler, or better age would probably be about as effective as Britain's ancient King Canute, who famously sat on his throne along the tide line and ordered the waves to go back. To be fair, he was only doing this to demonstrate the futility of expecting leaders and rulers to be able to command the forces of history and the world. But yeah, I tend to think that this conservative backlash that has been going on since the '70s is the final spasms of a dying creature; history is not moving that way, and no matter how much people dig their heels in and assume this is the 1950s or the Middle Ages, that's not the truth of the situation. No matter how powerful our political and religious leaders think they are, they are as dust before the immense and implacable forces of history and progress. I just hope that they don't make too much of a mess or take too many more people down with them.

...people's heads are stuffed with a fantastic amount of information, and I think all too often they cannot assimilate, digest or connect up that incredible amount of data into a coherent worldview. And I like to think that if my work is complex, it's because we live in a complex world. What I'm trying to do is give a bit of coherence to that complexity, to say that it is possible to think about politics, history, mythology, architecture, murder and the rest of it all at the same time to see how it connects.

With reference to my interest over the last 10 years in magic, one of the most useful formulas in alchemy, specifically, is "solve et coagula," where "solve" is the act of dissolving something, where we take something apart and study how it works -- what in our modern terms would be called analysis. In a scientific framework, it would be called reductionism. The other part of the formula is "coagula," which is synthesis rather than analysis, holism rather than reductionism, the act of putting something back together in a hopefully improved form. Once you take the watch to pieces and see what was making it run slow, you put it back together and hopefully it works better.

I'd say that we've had an awful lot of "solve" in our culture, but far too little "coagula." There are people who seem daunted by the complexity of our culture to the point that they'll shy away from it rather than try to put those thousands of jigsaw pieces together into some sort of useful, coherent picture. Which is not to say that everybody is like that. You mentioned Thomas Pynchon earlier, and he would be one of my primary inspirations for that worldview. Reading "Gravity's Rainbow" first alerted me to the fact that yes, you could work with this sort of complexity and richness. Pynchon was an authentic 20th century voice adequate to his time; the same with writers like James Joyce and Iain Sinclair.

Information is the 21st century's primary currency, it seems.

Information is funny stuff. In some of the science magazines I read, I've found it described as an actual substance that underlies the entirety of existence, as something that is more fundamental than the four fundamental physical forces: gravity, electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces. I think they've referred to it as a super-weird substance. Now, obviously, information shapes and determines our lives and the way we live them, yet it is completely invisible and undetectable. It has no actual form; you can only see its effects. Information is a kind of heat. I would suggest that as our society accumulates information, from its hunter-gatherer origins to the complexities of our present day, it raises the cultural temperature.

I feel that we may be approaching a cultural boiling point. I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; I really don't know because I can't imagine it, quite frankly. But I think we may be approaching the point at which the amount of information we are taking becomes exponential, and I'm not entirely certain what kind of human culture will exist beyond that point. Except it will happen sooner than we expect, and the difference between us and the kind of people that will exist after such an event will be vastly different than the difference between us and the hunter-gatherer society we've evolved from.

the wachowski's have their hands tied behind their back. the matrix sequels are evidence of this. they don't get everything they want. and so who knows. maybe that final scene was on the bargaining table.

Well, that's what you get for making Faustian bargins. Ultimately, it's their choice. Get a HD camera, some green screen paint, some cheap PCs and get the hell out...or go to Europe. That's what will be happening here very soon, en mass. That system's brain is about to get a whole hell of alot more drained. And rightly so...the bastards.

I'm sorry mate, I've been an avid reader of Rigorous Intuition for some time now but I just don't feel the same about it anymore. It was Jeff's comments on the Holocaust. I suspect him now! Is he just another Michael Moore? Moore is terrified of mentioning the possibility of Israeli involvement in 9/11 and blames it all on the Arabs. Jeff's shilly shallying on the so called Holocaust leaves me with a queer feeling in my stomach. I'm uneasy, queasy. This blog is somehow tainted now.Who is he working for?

So you meant to say: "How does he dare to have an opinion that's not mine?"

I'm sorry anonymous, but this is Jeff's playground. If you don't like the rules he's set, bad luck. Accepting those rules doesn't automatically mean you agree to his opinions, it just means showing basic courtesy. Which is just like stopping yourself from tearing down the wallpaper from the walls of someone's home if you don't like the colours or the pattern of it. You wouldn't do that, would you?

Sweet! I love the diversity of this forum, from the absolutely brilliant and thoughtful to the fuck you posts! They all demonstrate the importance of maintaining a balance in the spectrum of thought required for our survival.

Our strength is our random, spontaneous and simultaneous manifestation of conformity and non-conformity. Much energy is spent trying to marshal these forces and problems arise when one outnumbers the other.

From George Bush to Zundel,both having equal right to say and believe what they want even though I think they're both full of shit. I believe they make a necessary contribution, along with the saints amongst us to maintain this equilibrium. By their example they provide you with the means to see what you are NOT.

Any issue DEMANDING your allegiance immediately presents an opportunity for your input. For example,recognising the Holocaust as a brand that is as carefully managed as Coca-Cola by both sides of the issue reveals the need to shatter its cohesiveness with independant thought, thereby denying the issue its potency for moving forward a collective agenda that disguises truth; like the fact that everybody has an intrinsic vicious streak extending all the way back to the beginning of man. And it will stop at nothing, using every means at its disposal to manifest just because it can, unless we as individuals exercise the choice to do otherwise.

Our independance is rooted in the right to live our lives as if it were our own personal, private science project. Reserving the right to ponder issues and risk pain, poverty or death by living our own conclusions is the challenge we face. Overcoming fear is the key to opening up all issues and discovering the motivating forces within us that drive us to peace, love and transcendance or violence, hate and destruction.

The trickster and the angels vy for your attention. How they get it is up to them. Why and what they do with it is up to you.

It's a valid question. If, like in the movie, the political process doesn't work anymore - what's left that you can do?

Is it morally superior to endlessly debate about a strategy how to get rid of a fascist government, or - speaking in terms of the movie - doesn't it make more sense to just... flip the switch?

Really... why bother with a debate over impeachment when faced with Cheney as President? And so on:The "Continuity Act" now provides for the reformation of the entire US House and Senate structure, even after it is 'incapacitated', yet curiously (in effect) suspends them for 50 days...

3/2005- "The bill passed by the House last week requires states to hold special elections within 49 days if 100 members or more are killed or incapacitated. The 49-day period is both too short and too long: too short because the vast majority of states would not be able to meet that deadline in normal times, never mind the trying period after an attack,

... and too long because 49 days without a Congress means no check on the president. Remember that the president after a big attack might be an obscure Cabinet member, not the elected president.

This bill is meant to accompany a very disturbing rules change made quietly at the beginning of the 109th Congress that condones the House’s operating with just a handful of members..."

"Jeff's shilly shallying on the so called Holocaust leaves me with a queer feeling in my stomach. I'm uneasy, queasy. This blog is somehow tainted now.Who is he working for?"

I'm the guy who occasionally says horrible things to Jeff and Milligan.

I don't think he's working for anyone, his main interest seems to be nazis and I have to admit, most prominent revisionists are probably less than neutral as Jeff himself said. It's an understandable blindspot from a personal agenda.

Stanley Montreith is a genius conspiracist who believse America is a great Christian country, another agenda, another blindspot.

I hate the United States to a very deep level, I admit it. No doubt one day I'll trip over my own hatred.

I wish to FucK that people wouldn't post gigantic articles on a blog, it ruins the whole thing !!

Jeff, seriously, we despise Zionism, we got into this stuff specifically in reaction to the dishonesty of Zionists, we believe in categoric freedom of speech especially o the Internet, but you should just fucking delete all that bullshit about the Holocaust. For the past few threads -- none of which remotely touch on the Holocaust anyway -- some idiot comes in and distracts with nonsense about how David Irving is the messiah. It contributes nothing to the discussion at hand, it allows the Werner Cohn's and j's of the internet to dismiss you as yet another anti-Semite in the great goyische conspiracy, and even granting that we will talk about the fucking Holocaust just to humor this idiot he has nothing to say except to defend indefensible morons like Zundel. You really are losing nothing by just wiping away those comments.

For those of you only familiar with Alan Moore's comic work I can't recommend highly enough his novel Voice of the Fire & his spoken word cds The Birth Caul, The Moon & Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels,Angel Passages, The Highbury Working, & Brought To Light.

All, in my opinion, are head & shoulders above his comic work.

A tiny bit from Birth Caul:

The birth caul is the grisly banner left to flutter at our peakThe clear & lucid pinnacle of what we are before we start our long descent into the memory shrouding fogs that roil below the cloudlineIt is totem of a dreamtime forfeitedA birth cry songlight long since strangled and abandoned in our eagerness to kneel before the world's hallucinationsThat have bent our backs, reduced us, made us seperate from what we areThe birth caul is a thread of sporeA breadcrumb trail that guides us backBack down the ape-hillTo the crotch of valley & the swamp belowThe rich black waters & the belly mudAmino acid river & its nucleotide tideA fast & churning smart farm bearing everything before itRushing backwards to a source that is abhumanAbsolute& utter.

& then more "Signs & Wonders"

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/03/16/kgbbelarus.shtml

Belarusian State Security Committee Chairman Stepan Sukhorenko has accused the opposition of conspiring to stage a coup, news agencies said Thursday. Sukharenko said he had evidence that the United States and Georgia were backing efforts to overthrow the country’s current regime by force in Sunday’s presidential elections.

Stepan Sukharenko showed a press conference in the Belarussian capital, Minsk, a video of an interview with a man he said was one of those involved in the plot, RIA Novosti reported. The man said he had been at a training camp in Georgia at which training was provided by “four Arabs [and] officers of the former Soviet army”.

The man also said a colonel from the Georgian security services and American instructors had conducted examinations, and that the Americans had told them to bomb four polling stations at schools in Minsk during voting Sunday.

“The Americans told us to organize four explosions at schools. The place and time [of the attacks] were to be told [to us] later. Concrete locations were not indicated,” the man said.

Sukharenko also showed video footage he said was of Georgian nationals confessing that they were to deliver money and “everything necessary” to create disturbances on March 19. He said it was possible other attacks were being organized.

One's own beliefs concerning the Holocaust need not necessarily relate to one's own positions regarding Zionism. Or anything else for that matter. How could it displace any loyal reader and make them question Jeff's integrity by suggesting some sort of agenda?

Those type of "comments" are just as detrimental to this fine blog as the interminally long ones.

Actually Moore and Lloyd's graphic novel was based on a novel entitled " V for Vengeance" written by Dennis Yates Wheatley in 1952. Wheatley it seems was " considered an authority on the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic; as well as other black arts."(wikipedia)Add this to the fact that Wheatley was part of the braintrust that orchestrated Operation Bodyguard, which was instrumental to te succes of the invasion of Normandy, during WWII. Following his miltary career, which began in WWI, Wheatley was a prolific writer of some fifty adventure/occult novels-- including the aforementioned. So... we have a career military man , involved in one of the most important (some might argue THE most important) pieces of counter intelligence of contemporary history, a recognised expert in the supernatural, satanism, the practice of exorcism, and black magic; as well as other black arts, who writes a novel about the fascist future that awaits us and the masked liberator who will makes us all "free" by making us the same..... red flags anyone?

Dear starroute, Humans are social beings and as such they find the best situation possible given the framework presented to them. The personhood of the ‘real innovator’ is not defined in the same manner that consensual representations shape the larger society. There for, at best the hangers on are exposed to the commoditfied version of the ‘real innovators’ novel representation. Most innovators that do have hangers on have simply repackaged existing forms so as to stretch but not break those existing forms. Anyway, in my studies the ‘real innovator’ is dead long before anyone catches on to the importance of what is to be said. As for the breakaways becoming tomorrows herd, this holds only as long as social structures inhibit ‘enthusiasm’, or widespread recognition of the nature of our innate creative impulse.

I assume "V" is just like "Fight Club", an atempt to quell ant action by letting the sheep watch it instesd of do it. And, might I say, Holocost-Scmalolcost! Find somewhere else to argue that CRAP! I'm not here to nit-pick about who did what. We ALL know religion isn't it, fundementalism isn't it, and fanatism isn't it. I'm still trying to figure out how to talk to sheep about these subjects w/o getting black-balled.(which I did.)

There's an enormous amount of food for thought in what you say, and I'm going to be thinking about it for a while. However, I particularly like the idea that anyone who steps outside the consensus reality will be perceived -- if at all -- only in the form of a "commodified version" of themselves. It could explain a lot about the nature of fame.

I sold my tv a year ago. Television is the interface between yourselves and the people who are trying to manipulate you.

Get rid of your tv - save the planet. The web is more reliable than tv is anyways, plus you then automatically use your brain rather than let yourselves be literally hypnotized by the screen-refresh rate.

Unclear in all this who of you has actually watched the movie and judged it on its own merits. They wear the masks so they can't be identified, singled out. They take off the masks after that. Uniformity and diversity are interwoven. Both can be tools of the resistance.

What about a discussion on Guy Fawkes? Read the wikipedia article on the Gunpowder Plot. Very interesting, and think about what not only the Cecils wanted to achieve, but Mr. Bacon's role (it is very possible, of course, that Bacon was Shakespeare). Four hundred years later, we STILL don't know the truth of the Gunpowder Plot (for those who think that 9-11 will all become unravelled next week...next week...next week). Possibly it was all set up to have an excuse to keep the Catholics down. More of John Dee's dream?

Out there in mainstream America, even the knowledge of things such as Black Ops, particularly False Flag ops, is nonexistent (unlike in Europe, where Gladio and the Strategy of Tension made a big hit!). If nothing else, the movie will help people think about this possibility--particularly with Big Pharma at the heart of evil, and its references to bird flu. One poster suggested that art distracts people from doing anything, but I suspect a world without art would be even more terrifying.

Now, it does seem like most things that go boom are false flags and other black ops. Life WOULD imitate art if we could blame the next big boom on this movie! It seems to be an endless circle.

As an anarchist, I'm not quite sure I've ever understood how we've arrived at the point of thinking that all violence somehows benefits the State--when peace is often the biggest cop-out of all. I personally thought blowing up the credit buildings at the end of Fight Club was ingenious. Yes, I AM well aware of the COINTELROs, and Michael Rivero's endless reminders that any sort of violence is suspect. So we sit and watch as our families are raped and murdered, I guess? I know full well what I would be doing in Iraq if a relative had been processed at Abu Ghraib.

The agent provocateur label is a powerful silencer. And of course we all know how the valiant French Resistance under the Vichy used non-violent tactics? Were they all secretly working for the Nazis to justify Hitler's continuing hold on France? Were the Algerians all secretly working for the French? Were the Viet Cong working for US? By this logic, I suppose the Hmong were really working for Ho Chi Minh.

BTW, Wouldn't it be better to keep these posts on the topics of Jeff's posts, and the other stuff to EZ Board threads?

Since Dennis Wheatley came into the conversation above, I wanted to quote a bit about him and his fascist sympathies:

Wheatley's work is firmly fixed within the white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant imperialism of the late nineteenth/early twentieth centuries. He makes no bones about proclaiming the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race above all others. He is in no doubt that blacks and Jews are inferior. There are many instances of sadism in his work, primarily directed at women. Satanism (the left hand path) equates in Wheatley's mind with socialism (the political left). As with many writers of this period, his leaning towards the extreme right of politics was seen as providing a bulwark against the encroachment of the extreme left into literature as typified by the publications of Victor Gollancz and the socialist intellectuals of ‘The Left Book Club’.

He praises both Mussolini and Franco and, cringingly, refers to Hitler in ‘Red Eagle’ as ‘His Excellency’. In the Gregory Sallust war stories he makes Hermann Goring a largely sympathetic character. In Goring he saw an upper middle-class epicure and hero of the First World War with a strong sense of duty and nationhood, yet a man who could still share a dirty joke. These are the qualities that Wheatley possessed and admired in others. . . .

Accusations of having fascist sympathies were levelled at Wheatley in the 1930s with some justification, but unlike other writers, most notably Henry Williamson, he never allied himself to the fascist cause in Britain. . . . He loathed Oswald Mosley, whom he condemned unreservedly as a traitor, and his tireless and unique work for the Joint Planning Staff during the war, demonstrated beyond question that his loyalties could never stray from the liberal democracy which he saw manifest in the established British political system.

And interestingly enough (isn't it amazing what pops up when you google?), here's Alan Moore himself on Wheatley:

The occult novel, a rather Edwardian-looking edifice, presides gloomily over the most sodden and untrodden reaches of the literary landscape; a critical hinterland forever infused by the peculiar, paranoiac shade of Dennis Wheatley and thus seldom visited by those of subtler talent or more sophisticated intellect.

Wheatley's Manichean world, hopelessly confusing Satan with Stalin, is a place where fat and unpleasant Devil-worshippers with bad breath (often of uncertain ethnic origin) indulge in astral rumbles with a charming array of right-wing, upper class occult dilettantes. We can tell that the devil-worshippers are the bad guys because of their generally "evil" demeanour and their willingness to French kiss a goat's rectum while chanting "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!"

Sadly, when genuine occultists have made forays into fiction the result is little better. While less hysterical than Wheatley, Crowley's "Moonchild" reads most often like a mirror-image version of "The Satanist". Here, the diabolists are good guys but the general sense of middle-class decorum and lacklustre prose remain the same.

The information from "vbz" is incorrect. "V for Vendetta," despite its similar title, was definitely NOT based upon a Dennis Wheatley.

Rather than the "fascist future," "V for Vengeance" [published 1940] was set in the then-current fascist present.

"V for Vengeance" was one of "seven volumes incorporating all the principal events which occurred between September, 1939, and May, 1945, covering the activities of Gregory Sallust, one of the most famous Secret Agents ever created in fiction about the Second World War."

hmm...seeing Dee name checked just made me think how remembrance of the Gunpowder Plot was embedded in the culture over here as "Bonfire Night" on Nov 5th involving fireworks & burning old Guy in effigy. Interesting overtones of Moloch/Wicker Man ritualistic activity....pretty close to Halloween & all very much targeted at children.

It also means the breakaways are preprogrammed to become tomorrow's herd, once that first exhilerating moment of freedom has worn off.

You said it, Starroute.

Also, to whomever intimated that the last scene might have been the price Wachowski's had to pay in order to get the film made/released, yes, it seems like the sort of bubblegum "feelgood" ending that some groupthink brainwashed producer/exec probably insisted on: "we gotta end with something that ties it all together for the people" ...talk about pre-programmed.

Hollywood couldn't stomach a version that ended with everyone in true diversity simply showing up as themselves, the unwashed masses.

Even that MTV video by Eminem had everyone wearing black hoodies UNTIL they showed up to vote...

In Neal Stephenson's essay on modern culture vis-a-vis OS development, "In the beginning there was the Command Line," he demonstrates similarities between the future in The Time Traveller and contemporary American culture. He claims that most Americans have been exposed to a "corporate monoculture" which renders them "unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands." Anyone who remains outside of this "culture" is left with powerful tools to deal with the world, and it is they, rather than the neutered Eloi, that run things. The assumption seems to be that the Eloi will manage to fill their heads with garbage one way or the other, so American culture exists to ensure that it is harmless garbage rather than the dangerous types that lead to disruptions, violence, wars and inquisitions. To quote Stephenson directly: "But in our world it's the other way round. The Morlocks are in the minority, and they are running the show, because they understand how everything works. The much more numerous Eloi learn everything they know from being steeped from birth in electronic media directed and controlled by book-reading Morlocks. So many ignorant people could be dangerous if they got pointed in the wrong direction, and so we've evolved a popular culture that is (a) almost unbelievably infectious and (b) neuters every person who gets infected by it, by rendering them unwilling to make judgments and incapable of taking stands."

You obviously didn't see this movie because otherwise you would have cited natalie portmans ritual abuse at the hands of V in the middle, and her faith in a lesbian love affair as the tenet of faith that brings her to rebirth. Whil this movie played at political reformation, it was much more about sexuality and the acceptance of homosexuality, hence Portman's character's decsion to blwo everything up.

Jeff this part of the film should be the meat and potatoes of your analaysis and yet it is completely unmentioned? You need to have another post discussing this.

In the aftermath of the horror in New Orleans where thousands of black families lost their homes, Extreme Makeover:Home shows a black family with a dying father getting a fabulous new home with the most extreme decor and white people hugging the black people with tears in their eyes. Each of the black people then say "Thank you ABC". While my roomate sniffled and wiped away tears, I thought I was going to regurgitate my food.

The point of the holocaust is not whether or not thousands or millions of jews lost their lives. The point is there have been many holocausts througout history, including the holocaust of the Native Americans in America. The "revisionists" merely ask to see evidence of any actual oven where many jews were gassed in large groups. The "Holocaust" was then used to create Israel and then all the rest is in the "history" books.

Whether the movie "V for Vendetta" is an Illuminati construct or not - and that is certainly very possible - an interesting thing about it is that it refers us, especially those people in Britain, to the reign of James I (1603-1625), through the character "V", modelled on Guy Fawkes. James I was perhaps the last really sigificant British monarchs. He's a king who academics tend to underestimate, scorn or laugh at and was for centuries a victime of the partisan Whig interpretation of British history. But when you consider that: both his parents were murdered/executed; that his mother witnssed a murder when pregnant with James; that his peace with Spain (1604) enabled the English to establish themselves in North America (first colony - Jamestown; same James) and to lay the basis for their world-wide commercial merchant marine; that his government established the first British trading links with India and Japan; that he is the King who supervised the writing of the Authorised (King JAMES) version of the Bible; that he created Great Britain and the Union Jack flag; that Shakespeare worked for him as his playwright; that Francis Bacon was his Chancellor and Robert Cecil (the Kissinger of that time) his Secretary of State; that his refusal to assist his daughter-in-law and her husband (the rulers of the German Palatinate) in their struggle against the Catholic Habsburgs until it was too late contributed much to the disaster of the 30 Years War; that the only really people's festive occassion in Britain is Guy Fawkes Day (Nov 5th)from the reign of James I; and that James introduced Freemasonry into England from Scotland - then you realise that he was no ordinary monarch. Keeping all that in mind and then looking at "V for Vendetta", you can think that perhaps a 400 year-long chapter in British history is now closing that opened at the time of Guy Fawkes and in the reign of James I.Somehow the film or the story is aware of this. The era of the British Empire 1603-1997 has come to an end, and the national institutions that developed during that time will no longer suffice - hence they are blown up. It wouldn't be right to blow up Parliament (the building is too attractive) but the point is that we need a NEW kind of governance, a new kind of 'Parliament' today (the word means 'speaking'). the problem for the British is that too many of them do not recognise that this 400 year old epoch has come to an end; they are still stuck in old habits, assumptions of moral superiority, right to rule etc (vicariously, through goading on Uncle Sam - White Man's Burden etc - see Neill Ferguson).Britain needs a new a direction now in the 21st century. The imperial epoch that began with James and Guy is over. If the British fail to see this and fail to steer another course up another waterway, they'll end up sailing over the Niagara.....

Meanwhile, how much longer are the USA going to be stuck in the values of the late 18th century?

Whenever a feeling of aversion comes into the heart of a good soul,
it's not without significance.
Consider that intuitive wisdom to be a Divine attribute,
not a vain suspicion:
the light of the heart has apprehendedintuitively from the Universal Tablet. - Rumi